Giganews problems

[#1]

That will be more than enough.  It should only take us 5 minutes or so.

[#2]

Mav,
I'm at a bit of a loss now as it doesn't seem to be anything specific to do with your account.
I've just connected using your username and password and could browse perfectly normally to both easynews.com and giganews.com.
I also queued a binary Usenet download which came down using 4 threads at about 220kbps. That's about right for this time of day.
The problem definitely isn't evident when I try from here

[#3]

Well, you must have done something as it's working now
Just turned router back on (turned it off at around 16:15) and all seems well.
Edit: Something that I have just noticed (not sure if it could be connected) is that there is no usage showing for yesterday & the day before.

[#4]

I don't suppose you connect wirelessly to your router?
B.

[#5]

No.
Not sure how that would affect my access to Giganews or the lack of usage for two days

[#6]

I have accounts with giganews and usenetserver.com. I can't connect to either of them. I have tried using ports 119, 8000, 21 and 23 (they support these ports)  and just get connection timeouts

[#7]

Have you ever been able to connect to these Welk? Does a reboot resolve the issue? What account type are you on, have you exceeded any recommended usage guidelines and have you made sure your firewall and surf settings are switched off via the Member Centre (Although to be honest the firewall shouldn't cause issues)?

[#8]

I have used them extensively for over a year. (30GB this month for example). I have tried a reboot and two different machines. i have PlusNet Broadband Your Way Option 4 with included 40GB bandwidth. I have only used 9gb towards my allowance. Firewall and surf off.

[#9]

It would appear to be an IP range related issue, as I can't connect to either of the sites unless I use a proxy.
My IP is in the range 212.159.***.***

[#10]

I've just realised that I can't connect to my Astraweb account, either via their website or my news reader.
I am on the lagacy PAYG account, the surf options and PN firewall settings have not changed (just checked 'em), so something is screwy!
Gonna connect via RIN in a bit and try that.

[#11]

Yup, changed to RIN and can connect to them all now!
PN staffers should be able to see the IP change associated with my posts, if that helps.

[#12]

That's quite strange.
I would definitely consider giving Astraweb a ring and see if they are applying any IP filtering/blocking rules as I would be inclined to suspect that they're blocking your IP address.

[#13]

BTW, James, as the OP to this thread has anyone come up with a possible reason for my issues regarding Giganews.  I emailed Giganews and they said they had no blocking of ports, IP addresses or anything else that could affect my connecting to their servers.
I quote from a reply I received to an email

Quote

I looked over our server logs and your connections are reaching our servers but your user name and password are not.

Does this help, along with the tracerts I gave above,  in decyphering where the problem lies?
Also, no-one seems to have picked up on the fact that no internet usage at all has been registerd on my PN account for all Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday morning this week - both peak & off-peak. Not actually complaining at this
But could it have any bearing on the above?

[#14]

In honesty, not a great amount.
It's weird that they are seeing your connection attempt, but not any attempts to authenticate.  If it hadn't started working again after Bobs test yesterday, I might have been inclined to point towards an issue with your client, but as it's no workingI have absolutely no idea!

[#15]

i still can't connect to either.